Since I entered the Alouette Lake Fishing Derby and had a blast, I have been looking forward to the Cultus Lake Pike Minnow Derby. My buddy from school, T.Y. has recently taken up fishing as a hobby and since he just lives up the hill from Cultus Lake, he had been bugging me to loan him my boat for the derby. Like me, T.Y. is a bit of a go getter and wanted to start fishing today at 6am on the dot. So to bring him my boat from Cloverdale, I left the house this morning at a little before 5am. Good thing for Tim Hortons! And this is where my adventures started. Once my Timmies had woken me from my semi-sleeping state, I rolled onto the highway. Before long I was turning off at the mini golf course and rolling up to the boat launch at the boat rental shop. At around 5:40 T.Y. and his old high school chum drove up beside. The boat launch wasn’t open yet and after waiting about half an hour we decided to cruise over to Entrance Bay boat launch. We quickly threw the eleven footer into the water, revved up the wimpy 2 horse and headed over to the old military grounds. When we got to the bay at the old military grounds, there were pike minnows jumping all along the shore. We left our boat drift into the middle of them and threw our dew worms in. After about ten minutes of staring at Stealth float, a big pike minnow drag her to the bottom. I must of not been quite awake yet because I was not able to capitalize on my situation. By the time that I grabbed my Trophy Excel, the beast was gone.
The wind has been pushing us around for awhile, so while I was putting a new worm on my hook I suggested to T.Y. that we float fish from shore. The three of us each picked a spot around 50 ft apart and I cast out about 20 ft. to where the lake bottom dropped of and we waited. A little while later, I walked about a hundred feet to my left and I threw my line just past a boulder that was cresting just out of the water. Instantly, my float started darting about the surface of the water. The second that it dropped under, I set the hook and a trout that was about 14 inches was splashing on the surface of the water. I got him about half way in when he snapped my line. Needless to say luck wasn’t on my side this morning. I cast back to the same spot and again I instantly had a fish on. I was easily able to bring this one to the shore and after losing two nice fish in a row, it’s funny how excited you can get over a 4 inch pike minnow.
At around 9 o’clock, T.Y. dropped me off at the Sunnyside Campground where I met up with Westform. I helped him launch his boat and along with his son and 4 daughters we piled in. With a push of the throttle, the second part of my fishing adventure had begun. We stopped at three or four spots until we landed at the Maple Bay picnic area and we tossed our lines out once again. My float was sitting about 30 ft from the creek mouth and after a little while my mind started wonder. I took a little walk down the beach to see how Westform was making out and within a few minutes his float started to walk around and he thought that he had a trout on. He set the hook and reeled in and to our surprise he had hooked into my float. I grabbed my line and pulled it in. On my hook was a beautiful cutthroat that had such vivid colours that I haven’t never seen on a trout before. While I wasn’t paying attention to my own rod, this glorious trout snatched my worm and swam under Westform’s boat all the way over to where we were and tangled itself in Westform’s line. As a healthy fish should, with a few kicks she was gone. After a little debate, we decided to consider it a team effort and not one person’s fish. We dropped some of the kids at Sunnyside for lunch with their mom and headed back out.
After a short fishing session we headed back and picked up the kids who were re-energized and re-motivated. Our destination was about three hundred yards south of the main beach on the western shore and this is where I was able to hook into my first decent size pike minnow of the derby. It was getting close to 2 o’clock and we decided to head around to the next bay for another fifteen minutes of power fishing. Yeah, that’s right I power fish. Westform went to the far end of the next beach with one of his twins. They both cast out a line and in a flash Westform was into his first fish of the day. As we packed up, I was disappointed that none of the kids had caught a fish and as Mini Westform (his son) reeled in his line he yelled, “ I’ve got one, I’ve got one!” I ran over as fast as I could and there Mini Westform was with a huge silly grin on his face, holding up a 3inch bullhead. I’ll admit, this was a pretty funny way to end a fun fishing day.
To summarize, the fishing was slow but the weather held out nicely and over all I had a great day. I’d like to put out a sincere thank you toward the volunteers and organizers of the Cultus Lake Pike Minnow Fishing Derby. The guides that donated their boats and their time to help people fish, from what I saw they made the day a lot of people and were a huge part of a great derby.
Tight lines,
Trophy Fisher
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Topic: Cultus Lake, June 20th 2009: Derby Day (Read 775 times)